Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1
The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team has announced another five new additions to its driver development programme.
Reigning World Karting champion Ethan Jeff-Hall joined its ranks a month ago, with Mercedes confirming his arrival after he appeared in photographs with the team’s other juniors and its F1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
At the end of February, Prema then put out a video showing Rashid Al Dhaheri in Mercedes team kit and confirmation of his junior driver status did not come until Mercedes made a full line-up reveal this Friday.
The 16-year-old Al Dhaheri will feature in Prema’s Formula Regional European Champiohnship line-up this year, and began 2025 by driving for sister team Mumbai Falcons in FRegional Middle East. He came sixth in the standings with three podiums.
For the previous two years he has raced in Formula 4, making the podium once in the Italian championship and once in E4 (nee Euro 4), taking a win in F4 South East Asia and four on home soil in the United Arab Emirates.
Representing Mercedes in the FIA F3 Championship will be 17-year-old Noah Stromsted, who is embarking on his fifth year in single-seaters. He was Danish F4 runner-up in 2021 as a car racing rookie, and did two Spanish F4 rounds in 2022. The year after he was ninth in F4 UAE and seventh in Spanish F4, and made two FREC outings with Race Performance Motorsport.
He joined the team full-time in 2024, and was runner-up in four races en route to sixth in the FREC standings. Late in the year he reunited with his Spanish F4 team Campos Racing to make his F3 debut, and the Dane will be in the F1 support paddock full-time this season with Trident.
Yet to prove themselves in cars but also earning Mercedes’ backing are Andy Consani, Julia Montlaur and Many Nuvolini.
Consani, 15, will race in French F4 this year and was 16th in the CIK-FIA European championship for OK karts in 2024. He was also fourth in the WSK Euro Series, 21st in the WSK Final Cup and 36th in the CIK-FIA World championship.
In 2023 he raced on OK Junior karts, and was ninth in the World championship and 16th in the European championship, and back in 2021 he finished 18th in the Trofeo delle Industrie on his X30 Junior kart debut.
His fellow French racer Montlaur has so far competed in their home country’s mini karting scene with little success, and the 12-year-old is stepping up to junior karting for 2025.
Nuvolini, who is only 11 years old, is also spending this year in junior karting. He is currently 13th in the WSK Super Master Series for OK-N Junior karts. Last year he won the IAME Warrior Final and was IAME Series France champion on X30 Mini karts,